


Insanity check

by Urdnot Wrecks (touchstone2015)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Control Ending, M/M, Post-Canon, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4384160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchstone2015/pseuds/Urdnot%20Wrecks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard is gone, and the Reapers are rebuilding the galaxy.<br/>And you're left an empty shell.</p>
<p>But someone who loves you pays you a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insanity check

Shepard vanished after the Crucible fired.  
And you don't know why the Reapers began to rebuild the galaxy, but they did.

The end of the war was almost the end of you.  
You had a long spell in a psych hospital after the Normandy limped back to Earth.  
Even now, ten years on, you're still very fragile.

Your family would like to take care of you in Vancouver.  
But you stay on the Citadel; Shepard's flat is about the only thing you have left of him.  
You don't even have his dog-tags.

The veteran's organisation is good to you; its people make sure you get your war pension, take you on trips, check you're taking the meds.

Folk from the Normandy crew call in occasionally.  
You're glad to see them, but they bring back memories of your time on the ship.  
With Shepard.

And your ship-mates are glad to see you too.  
But they find it hard to see their friend the war hero, balding, shuffling, hardly able to complete a sentence.  
So they don't stay long.

You spend your days aimlessly walking the Citadel.  
Lots of folk seem to know who you are; by and large, they treat you kindly.

You find yourself at Apollo's Cafe, and take a seat.  
This is the exact spot where you told Shepard that you loved him.  
You still do.

You lose yourself in your thoughts.

You hear a chair leg scrape across the floor and look over to see... Shepard.  
Shepard, as he was a decade back.  
Shepard, with the blue eyes and the nick in his hairline.  
Shepard, the man you love.

"You look like you could use a sanity check," he says.  
"I've been watching you all this time; this is the first chance I've had to see you face to face."

Shepard reaches across the table and takes your hand in both of his.  
His hands are warm.

You immediately think back to the Reapers, and the way they "re-purposed" organics.  
"Don't worry", says Shepard, as if he knows what you're thinking.  
"The body's purely synthetic. There's a web of small thermal generators under the polymer skin."

He smiles.  
"You remember EDI, and the way she controls that android body of hers?  
Pretty much the same here. Though my cognitive processors are a few giga-parsecs away."

He doesn't offer you a drink; he seems to know that alcohol interferes with the meds.  
Instead he says, "Let's walk."

You link your arm with Shepard's and lean against him.  
He steers you to a quiet spot, and says, "I love you".  
And takes you in his arms.

Now he's kissing you, kissing that exact spot just below your ear which makes you start to shudder.  
And the middle finger of his hand, which was circling your tail-bone, is moving lower.

And you don't know whether you're dreaming, or hallucinating, or seeing a ghost.  
And you couldn't care.  
This moment, this touch, means everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, my muse surprised me with this fic, which came to me pretty well in its final form. I hope you enjoy it.


End file.
